Tutorial: How to create an Entry Form Giveaway

If you want to set up an entry form to ask for users' data, and enter them into a prize giveaway in return, follow the steps outlined below:

• Step 1. Create the promotion

• Step 2. Customize text and images for each page

• Step 3. Create the prize

• Step 4. Customize the design (Premium and White Label)

• Step 5. Insert legal texts

• Step 6. Configure My Networks and the promotion footer

• Step 7. Customize viral content

• Step 8. Advanced settings

• Step 9. Restrictions on promotion access

• Step 10. Communicate with participants via the email platform (Premium and White Label only)

• Step 11. Preview the promotion

• Step 12. Activate the promotion

• Step 13. Publish the promotion

• Step 14. Share the promotion

• Step 15. Manage the active promotion

• Step 16. Check the promotion statistics

• Step 17. Activate the final giveaway for participants

• Step 18. Finishing up the promotion

 

Step 1. Create the promotion

1. Access the Easypromos Control Panel. Log in with your email address and password to manage and create your promotions.

 

2. Click the ‘Create new promotion’ button to start setting it up.

 

3. You'll see a list of available products. Choose ‘Entry Form Giveaway’ to create a promotion with an entry form and a giveaway prize for randomly selected winners.

4. As a next step, set up the following options:

• Organizing brand. As a first step, you should select or create an organizing brand for your promotion. This organizing brand is independent of any social network and works as a folder within your Easypromos account, in order to help organize the promotions that you create.
• Template version. Select which template you want to use to create your promotion: Basic, Premium or White Label.

Note: Compare here the features and functionalities included in each template.

5. After clicking on "Continue" button, you'll get access to the promotion management page. This is where all the options for configuring the promotion are laid out. The most important sections are outlined below:

1. Header. This displays the title of the promotion, the platform you have chosen, and other relevant information such as the promotion ID. You'll also see your Promotion status in the small orange box. This indicates whether your promotion is Active, Draft or Old, as well as if it’s about to start. Once the promotion period has ended, this field will be marked in red, and you'll be able to decide how the expired link to the promotion will appear. 
2. Link to the promotion. This is the URL that you should use for sharing and publicizing the promotion. (You can learn more about URLs for sharing here.) You'll also see the Copy link button. This automatically copies the URL for you to share.
3. Activate Promotion button. When the promotion is ready to launch, click this button to activate it. You'll be taken to the activation page, where you can review your billing information before making the payment for the promotion.
4. Side menu. All your promotion settings in one place.
5. View tutorial. This tutorial guides you through creating and managing your promotion, step by step.
6. Set the date and timezone for the promotion. You can set and change the default languages of the promotion. Finally, you can limit participation to one or more countries with the localization tool. (This option is included by default in the Premium and the White Label promotions. If you're using the Basic platform, you'll have to purchase an additional extension. Learn more about that here.)
7. Next steps: Practical suggestions for the creation and management of your campaign.

Note:  The promotion ID number is a unique identifier for each promotion. If you have any issues, use the promotion ID when you contact the Easypromos support team. This will make it easier for us to help you out.

 

Step 2. Customize text and images for each page

The platform comes with many features that are pre-set, based on whether you chose Basic, Premium or White Label. Now let’s take a look at customizing text and images for the promotion, including colors and font settings.

1. Enter the promotion "Editor".

2. Configure the text and images for each page of the promotion by going to Editor > Pages:

A) Welcome

• Change the default title "🎁 Giveaway for a [PRIZE] 🎁" to one that identifies the strong points of your promotion. It’s a good idea to make this descriptive text as attractive to users as possible.
• Configure the text for the page and upload an image to make it more attractive.
• Customize the text in the Description to explain how your giveaway or contest works. Participants should be clear about what steps they must follow to participate. You can also customize the ‘Enter’ button.

B) Entry form.

Add the fields that you want your participants to complete. You can customize the text and the page header image. In the Premium and White Label versions, you can configure the form with all the additional fields, drop down menus and checkboxes that you need. Find out more about setting up the entry form.

Note: The customization of the entry form with additional text fields is not included by default in promotions created with the Basic version. It can be included as an extension for $19USD/€19EUR.

C) Thank you page.

• Customize the page with a final image and a thank you text. Use the final image to give a more personalized aspect to the giveaway and remind users of the prize. You also have the option to create an extra button with an external link.
• Encourage users to share. To the left of the first share button, there's a text that you can customize. Use this to encourage your participants to share the contest.
• Thank you message. You can thank participants and tell them when the winner will be announced.

D) Advanced options.

In addition, you have the following additional features to customize the promotion pages:

Customize the name of each section and the icon that identifies it within the promotion menu. For example, you can change the default name of the "Welcome" page to "Start".

• Add new sections to the promotion menu for additional content. This new section can be set up in two different ways:
  
  • New page, for example, to present and explain the prizes of the promotion.
  • External link, to drive traffic to your website or microsite.

 

Note: Learn how to customize the promotion menu in this tutorial.

 

Step 3. Create the prize

Once all pages of the promotion have been customized, the next step is to create the prize for the giveaway. You need to decide how you're going to award it and how it will be shown to registered users.

Easypromos provides a complete Prize and Winners Management system for the purpose. There are 4 different ways to award the prizes. For this type of promotion, we will select “Through Random Sweepstakes". You'll be able to select the winners of the prize with a random draw from among all the participants, or among a segment of participants. You can select participants with a filter based on any criterion you choose.

To create your "Random Draw" prize, follow this tutorial for all the available settings and customization options.

 

Step 4. Customize the design (Premium and White Label)

In the Design menu, you can customize the look & feel of your promotion to adapt it for your brand or product.

Note: The Design module is not included by default in Basic promotions. You can add a color design extension for $19USD.

For Premium and White Label promotions (and Basic promotions with the extension enabled) the "Design" section offers the following options:

• Colors: Change the colors of texts and buttons in the promotion.
• Typography: Select the font used for texts and buttons in the promotion.
• Buttons: Set the style of the promotion buttons (outlined or solid).
• Container: Completely customize the container by setting the style, opacity, height or position.
• Background: Customize the background of the promotion with your own image or choice of colors. The background will be the same for all screens in the promotion.
• CSS styles (White Label only): Use your own CSS styles to completely customize the template.

Discover all the creative possibilities offered by our Design Module.

Note: The customization of colors and fonts is not included by default in promotions created with the Basic version. It can be included as an extension for $10USD.

 

Step 5. Insert legal texts

In this section you can upload legal texts to display them in the promotion. Specifically you can upload the terms and conditions to explain all aspects of the promotion, contest or sweepstakes. Additionally you can also upload your privacy policy to explain how and for what purpose you will treat the data of the users that register in the promotion. In Premium and White Label promotions it's also possible to upload your own Cookies policy.

To add the terms and conditions, go to the Editor > General > Legal content, where you will find the following sections:

• Terms and conditions.
• Privacy Policy 
• Cookie Policy (only in Premium & White Label promotions).

 

Note: Check here how to set up the consent of the legal texts of the promotion. 

Step 6. Configure My Networks and the promotion footer

The 'My networks' module enables you to totally customize the screen which the user sees before they finalize registration. For example, you can give them the option to click ‘Like’ on your Facebook Page. My Networks can be customized to connect with Facebook, as well as with Twitter, Instagram and Youtube accounts. Learn how to do that here.

To customize My Networks, go to Editor > General > My Networks:

You can also customize the text in the promotion footer, or deactivate it if you don't want it. The text is displayed as a banner at the foot of each screen of the promotion.

To enable the promotion footer, go to Editor > General > Footer where you'll see the following options:

• "Created by" field which will allow you to customize the name of the brand or company organizing the promotion.
• Decide what elements you want to show in the promotion foot.

 

Step 7. Customize viral content

This section is very important if you want the giveaway to go viral. The viral content is the message that will be shown whenever a participant shares the promotion with friends or invites others to the promotion. You can customize this share message, based on the social media participants use when they invite friends to the promotion and obtain recruits.

To customize the viral content of the promotion, go to Editor > General > Share:

 

Note: in the Basic version, you will only see an option to upload a viral image in appropriate sizes for each of the social networks. You cannot customize the text.

A) Generic:

Set up the generic contents of the promotion here:

• Viral image: This is the image that will accompany the share text. For social network optimization, we suggest a size of 1200px by 630px. The same image will be shared on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+. If you don’t upload a specific image for this section, the main promotion image will be displayed when a participant shares the promotion.
• Generic content: This is the viral text that will be shared on social media when the participant uses the share buttons on the main page, the entry form or the header. 

B) Recruitment.

This is the default content when users share to social networks from the final page. Learn how to configure it.

 

Step 8. Advanced settings

Go to Editor > Pages > Entry Form > Options to review the following options:

Let's look at those options in a little more detail:

• Max. users: Decide if you want to limit the promotion to a maximum number of participants. By default, there is no limit on the number of users who can participate in the contest.
• Maximum entries per user: You can decide how many times the same user can participate. The default is one competition entry per user.
• Enable premoderation: You can moderate your entries before they appear in the public gallery. (This option is not required in a Sweepstakes with Registration).
• Notification of new entrant: Enable this option if you want to receive an email every time a new participant registers for the promotion.
• Disable autofocus in first form field. By default, the “Name” field in the entry form has the autofocus activated so that the participants can begin to write without having to click on the field first when the page loads. This option allows to disable this effect to avoid that the autofocus scrolls down the page, which is useful in promotions that have a big header image.
• Anti-fraud options: Easypromos is serious about organizing top-quality contests. The platform contains a range of techniques and tools to minimize the impact of some participants' bad practices. Consult the options available.

Note: Only some of these options are available in the Basic version. These include Max. users, Enable Facebook Login?, Do you want to be mandatory for users to connect on Facebook? and Disable Form.

Then go to the Editor> Pages> Form> Social Login. From here you can enable identification with Facebook and Instagram as a way to identify users and decide if you want it to be mandatory for the user to identify with one of these two social networks to participate.

 

Step 9. Restrictions on promotion access

The application allows you to restrict access and limit the users who can participate in a promotion. Specifically, the platform offers you 2 forms of restriction:

• Country restriction: You can limit the promotion to a specific country or countries. Only users who connect from the selected country or countries will see the promotion. Learn how to enable country restriction here.

Note: Country restriction is not included in promotions created with the Basic platform. It can be added as an extension for $19USD / 19EUR.

• Age Restriction: Limit the promotion to users whose date of birth is higher than the one indicated by the administrator. This establishes a minimum age for participants. Learn how to enable age verification here.

Note: The Age Restriction feature is only available for promotions created with the Premium or White Label platform.

 

Step 10. Communicate with participants via the email platform (Premium and White Label only)

If you need to communicate with participants during or after the promotion, you can use this section to create, customize and send emails.

This tool is especially useful for giveaways. It enables you to configure automatic emails to contact participants:

1. To thank participants for registering, inform them of when the contest will be held, and when the result will be made known.
2. Send an email to the contest winners.
3. Send an email to all participants, confirming that the promotion has ended and thanking them for their participation.

Learn how to create an email with the platform to communicate with participants and increase your promotion's viral reach. 

Important! The email platform includes the ‘smart tags’ feature. This enables you to configure customized emails. The ‘smart tag’ {{user_recruiting_url}} will be substituted by the recruitment URL of each participant when you send the email.

Note: The Emails Platform is not included by default in Promotions created with the Basic version. It can be included as an extension for $50USD.

 

Step 11. Preview the promotion

You can preview how the active promotion will be displayed. To do this, go to the "Preview" button in the header of the promotion Editor.

Bear in mind that the preview is just to see what the promotion will look like. It is not a functional test. That’s why you can go to the next page without filling in your data, for example. To test the functional recruitment process of the promotion, you will have to activate it. You can protect the promotion with a password in order to test it privately. We explain how to do this here.

 

Step 12. Activate the promotion

Once you have configured all aspects of the promotion, you can activate it and make payments from the management page. Find more information here.

 

Step 13. Publish the promotion

Now your promotion is active - but your users can't participate unless you publish the web address! When you created the contest, a microsite was created to display the promotion, with a unique URL. The URL is the main link to the promotion.

By default, this main link leads to the welcome page of the microsite, but you can change this. You can additionally publish the promotion on a Facebook Page, or embed it in your blog or website. You can control where you wish to publish the promotion via “Buzz”. You can find all the information about this step here.

 

Step 14. Share the promotion

It’s important to share and publicize the promotion on a range of different channels. Always use the main link to the promotion. Other links may not be compatible with a full range of devices.

You can share in the following ways:

• With the direct link to the promotion.
• With the ‘share’ button on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
• Use Facebook Ads to give more visibility to the promotion. One of the most effective ways to improve the visibility of the promotion is through the Facebook advertising service, which will allow you to create an advertisement to promote the contest and generate traffic to the promotion. To do this, you must access the Facebook advertisers page and create an advertisement to promote the contest. 
• Making your promotion a Featured promotion. This adds your campaign to Easypromos' own list of highlighted promotions. Featuring a promotion has an additional cost per day of the campaign. If you’d like to create a highlighted campaign, consult this tutorial.

We also recommend reading these articles for extra tips:

• 14 basic steps for disseminating and highlighting your campaign on your Facebook Page.
• Tutorial: How to disseminate a promotion.

 

Step 15. Manage the active promotion

While the promotion is active, you can monitor and manage competition entries from the management page. Just click on the "Participants" section in the menu on the left side. You can also access the entries list from the “Statistics” section:

In the "Participants" section, you can see information about all the participants and download it to Excel.

Note: Information about participants will still be available after the promotion has finished.

 

Step 16. Check the promotion statistics

Access the ‘Statistics’ section to find out how participation is developing, and how users are interacting with the application. This information will be available as soon as the first entry is made, until after the promotion has finished. Learn more about the information available in this section.

 

Step 17. Activate the final giveaway

When the participation period ends, it's time to assign prizes to the winners. In the “Sweepstakes” app, you've created a prize with “Through Random Sweepstakes” assignment. This means that when the promotion ends, we can use the Sweepstakes tool to select the winners. You can run the contest between all participants, or within a segment of participants.

To do this, go to the “Winners” section of the menu, on the left-hand side of the main promotion management page:

 

In this section, you'll see the prize that you've created for your promotion, together with the tools to manage it. Here you can:

1. Activate the giveaway to assign the prize to the winner.
2. Publish the prize winners on the prizes page.
3. Share the result on your social media channels.

Follow this tutorial for a step-by-step guide through the process of running the contest and assigning prizes to the winners.

When you have selected the winners, you can use the email platform to communicate with them about their prizes, and to thank all participants for joining in.

 

Step 18. Finishing up the promotion

The end of a promotion is controlled by the dates you set in the promotion Editor. When the "End of publication date" is passed, the promotion changes from active status to expired status. By default, the promotion is unpublished and is no longer visible. If users click the promotion URL, a screen with the message "promotion expired" will be displayed.

As administrator of the contest, you can edit the content of the "promotion expired" screen. For example, you could edit it to display the winners of the promotion, or keep the contest gallery visible. You can even republish the promotion so that it's visible again.

In this link, we explain your options once the promotion is finished.